Your website could be pristine, your customers loyal and your social media followers immense. Yet small, subtle mistakes on your website – a main source of marketing – could make a massive difference to your credibility. Credibility is what all business owners need and most will avoid ever putting a dent in it; however, some things can slip through the cracks when it comes to content so pay attention.
Let’s check out some of the common mistakes on websites that could impact your credibility. You’ll want to check these possibilities on your own website to see if you’re guilty of making these mistakes:
- Copyright Year – This is a simple mistake to make, especially at the start of each year. The copyright year is probably one of the easiest items to overlook. In some cases, I’ve visited websites that are 2-3 years out of date, which seriously harms the credibility of the business.
- Outdated Blogs – Blogging and content marketing are great ways of generating website traffic, but the majority of businesses tend to give up or take their eye off the ball at some point. Sometimes businesses get busy taking care of their clients that they forget to maintain their blogs or an employee in charge of them may leave thus the blog updates get missed. Try to keep these updated every month at a minimum to show potential customers you are engaged in your business.
- Embedded Feeds – At one time, social media feeds were the thing to have on your website home page. Nowadays not so much because they slow down website download speeds or can become broken due to app updates. Check your feed and if your last social media post was a long time ago, it also shows a lack of engagement for your business. You don’t want your website to appear outdated.
- Unfinished Content – Ensure every page of your website is complete and has a purpose, with an image or video, a keyword with on-page SEO, and more than one paragraph for good indexing on search engines. Oftentimes when a business is creating its website they have pages that are unfinished and it forgot to complete them. I’m sure the intention was to add to them in the future. However, time passed… and the page stayed the same. That’s not a good impression to make to a potential customer. [Susan, please link to the on-page SEO blog in the sentences above]
- Ancient References – Keep your website references to current events timely. Content referencing outdated events or holidays shows your visitor that you aren’t keeping your website up to date. Check your website frequently to notice if you may be accidentally making references to bygone times. Sometimes it’s better to think evergreen, so it’s easier to manage the content on an ongoing basis.
- 404 Errors – Ensure your website’s 404 page is up to date. Not sure what a 404 page is, read our blog here. Check all the links on your website and make sure they are going to a live page. This helps sustain credibility as well.
Managing a website is a full-time job, believe us when we say that. For over 15 years, we’ve been helping small businesses across North Carolina and the world design and maintain their websites. If you need help, contact us today and we can do a quick audit of your website to help uncover any mistakes you may be making.